VANESSA LAGOS: NEW RESEARCHER POULTRY NUTRITION

In August Vanessa Lagos has started as a Researcher in the R&D Poultry team of Schothorst Feed Research.

Vanessa is a native of Bogotá, Colombia. In March 2016, she graduated with a B.S. degree in Animal Sciences with a focus on swine production from the National University of Colombia in Bogotá. During an internship at the Stein Monogastric Nutrition Laboratory, she discovered her interest on research and monogastric nutrition. In the summer of 2016, Vanessa started working towards her M.Sc. degree under the guidance of Dr. Hans H. Stein at the University of Illinois. Her work was focused on determining digestible Ca requirements by growing pigs, and in May 2018, she obtained her M.Sc. degree in Nutritional Sciences. She then started her Ph. D. program, which focused on the influence of microbial phytase in pig diets on calcium requirements, post-weaning growth performance, phytate degradation, and nutrient digestibility. During her doctoral program, Vanessa did a 4-month internship at the Polytechnic University of Madrid under the supervision of Dr. Gonzalo G. Mateos, where she collaborated in a number of digestibility and growth performance experiments using broiler chickens and brown-egg laying pullets. Over the last 6 years at the University of Illinois, Vanessa was also hired as a graduate research assistant, which gave her the opportunity to be involved in several research projects related to feed ingredient evaluation and nutrient requirements. Vanessa defended her PhD dissertation in April 2021.